I'm a Spanish warlord in a red beret
Sep. 28th, 2010 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllI try not to post 'Stupid Columnist Is Stupid' stuff anymore, because really, what's the point? Half the time it's exactly what they want. But I read this article more than a week ago and it's still bugging me.
"Gentrification can be funny. A middle-class friend of mine recently moved to Brixton in south London. She noticed a chicken shop at the end of her road which always had expensive cars parked outside at night, and queues of people through the door. Assuming this was a reflection of the quality of its food, she went in asking for some chicken. Her request was met with astonishment by the owner and the great amusement of the other customers. There was barely a kitchen, and certainly no cooking going on.
If you are a middle-class person who has never lived in a poor area, it may not be obvious to you either that the chicken shop was actually selling drugs."
I'm not trying to be all street here, but I am aware of plenty of London commercial premises which seem to be fronts for something dodgy. At least one I can say with certainty was, because a week or so after we were in there buying after-hours booze, I saw footage on TV of SWAT cops raiding it and carting off lots of heroin. Plenty of these shops are not very good at their nominal trade - but they always make some desultory effort at a cover. And a chicken shop? Which, more than any other, will attract the drunk and uncomprehending customer who's going to get in the way of the real business? That seems like a very strange choice of cover.
Beyond that...well, last week I helped record 'a radio play', as we are now apparently calling the scurrilous collection of in-jokes and outright puerility that is The Oxford Dons; once it's uploaded for timeshifted listening, I'll put the link on here. I walked to Hackney for the recording, and while I was disappointed that Balls Pond Road doesn't seem to have a ball pond, it does have a deeply Dalston community garden, and an oddly hallucinogenic windmill, and a beautiful old supplier of colours to artists. Afterwards, astonished that we seemed to have got away with it, we sat in the infamously hipster London Fields (something else I've never done before), where even the beggars claim to be poets or foot masseurs. I'm sure if I'd stuck around longer one would have turned up insisting he was actually a DJ. Then down to the heart of town for a library raid (the next four volumes of Invincible were my goal, the fact that schoolgirls were tying each other up next to the comics shelf was strictly a bonus) and the newly restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. If you were hoping it might make sense now, then sorry, much of the plot is still strictly to be inferred - but my word, it's beautiful. Then off for sushi - quite the Axis evening. I liked it, but I'm not sure I see it as making a whole meal, the flavours are great for treats but too complex for consumption en masse.
On Thursday I went for what should have been a civilised dinner, and then have a gap somewhere after I left, until I remember climbing out of the park. Which isn't even on any sensible route home from where I was. Hmmm. Friday also ended up involving a fair amount of red wine, although no park detours this time*, which meant that I felt not the slightest compunction about having a quiet night in on Saturday. Not done that for a long, long time. But there was another party to attend on Sunday, after all.
*There were some other detours earlier, because the route to Kilburn - which I had hoped might be simpler on foot - is in fact horribly tricksy, and seems to use either main roads, or the eerily deserted sort**. Shan't be trying that again. Was there to see The Vichy Government at No Fiction, where their fascist dance anthem 'Iberia' made its live debut. Good times.
**I usually like deserted roads, but sometimes you can tell they're deserted for a reason.
"Gentrification can be funny. A middle-class friend of mine recently moved to Brixton in south London. She noticed a chicken shop at the end of her road which always had expensive cars parked outside at night, and queues of people through the door. Assuming this was a reflection of the quality of its food, she went in asking for some chicken. Her request was met with astonishment by the owner and the great amusement of the other customers. There was barely a kitchen, and certainly no cooking going on.
If you are a middle-class person who has never lived in a poor area, it may not be obvious to you either that the chicken shop was actually selling drugs."
I'm not trying to be all street here, but I am aware of plenty of London commercial premises which seem to be fronts for something dodgy. At least one I can say with certainty was, because a week or so after we were in there buying after-hours booze, I saw footage on TV of SWAT cops raiding it and carting off lots of heroin. Plenty of these shops are not very good at their nominal trade - but they always make some desultory effort at a cover. And a chicken shop? Which, more than any other, will attract the drunk and uncomprehending customer who's going to get in the way of the real business? That seems like a very strange choice of cover.
Beyond that...well, last week I helped record 'a radio play', as we are now apparently calling the scurrilous collection of in-jokes and outright puerility that is The Oxford Dons; once it's uploaded for timeshifted listening, I'll put the link on here. I walked to Hackney for the recording, and while I was disappointed that Balls Pond Road doesn't seem to have a ball pond, it does have a deeply Dalston community garden, and an oddly hallucinogenic windmill, and a beautiful old supplier of colours to artists. Afterwards, astonished that we seemed to have got away with it, we sat in the infamously hipster London Fields (something else I've never done before), where even the beggars claim to be poets or foot masseurs. I'm sure if I'd stuck around longer one would have turned up insisting he was actually a DJ. Then down to the heart of town for a library raid (the next four volumes of Invincible were my goal, the fact that schoolgirls were tying each other up next to the comics shelf was strictly a bonus) and the newly restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. If you were hoping it might make sense now, then sorry, much of the plot is still strictly to be inferred - but my word, it's beautiful. Then off for sushi - quite the Axis evening. I liked it, but I'm not sure I see it as making a whole meal, the flavours are great for treats but too complex for consumption en masse.
On Thursday I went for what should have been a civilised dinner, and then have a gap somewhere after I left, until I remember climbing out of the park. Which isn't even on any sensible route home from where I was. Hmmm. Friday also ended up involving a fair amount of red wine, although no park detours this time*, which meant that I felt not the slightest compunction about having a quiet night in on Saturday. Not done that for a long, long time. But there was another party to attend on Sunday, after all.
*There were some other detours earlier, because the route to Kilburn - which I had hoped might be simpler on foot - is in fact horribly tricksy, and seems to use either main roads, or the eerily deserted sort**. Shan't be trying that again. Was there to see The Vichy Government at No Fiction, where their fascist dance anthem 'Iberia' made its live debut. Good times.
**I usually like deserted roads, but sometimes you can tell they're deserted for a reason.
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